Fascinated by the parallels between these observations by Michael Wesch from last March and the turmoil in Egypt, the razor’s edge of the communication changes and their potential impacts. I love the story that at some point during the internet shutdown, people in Tahrir Square strung dozens and dozens of extension cords to enable someone’s pirated dialup connection to broadcast Al Jazeera to the crowds. People’s resourcefulness and resilience are astounding, and yet the fragility of free and open communication is constantly worrying.

Here’s the quote from his lecture which grabbed me:

We’re right now on a razor’s edge between these hopeful possibilities and more ominous futures, you might say. So on the one hand there’s hope for openness and freedom, and on the other side of that razor’s edge is more possibilities for surveillance and control. There is more hope for transparency, and also new opportunities for deception. There’s new hope for mass participation, and yet we all see the possibilities for mass distraction as well. So what we need is, we need people, we need our students, we need everybody, to be more open, daring, caring, creative, collaborative, self-motivated, and voracious as learners. And yet this

Screen shot from TEDxNYED - Michael Wesch - 03/06/10

is where we are training them.

~~~~~

His final slide:

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Fred is a Teaching Artist, an arts integration advocate & a social justice activist.
He is near completing a two-month Residency as String Game Performance Teacher at Calabasas Elementary School in Watsonville, CA, and performed at the 2015 Santa Cruz Storytelling Festival. He also serves as Teacher Consultant for Professional Development with UCSC's Central California Writing Project and as their Technology Liaison to the National Writing Project. He is a Connected Learning Facilitator and coordinates Face To Face Drop Ins on Connected Learning biweekly at Arts Council Santa Cruz County. He teaches self-directed & connected learning via real-world projects & string games through his Original Digital Project, an Associate of the Arts Council.